Like We Used To
by xXACCEBXx
Summary: Does he watch your favorite movies? Does he hold you when you cry? Does he let you tell him all your favorite parts when you've seen it a million times? Does he do all these things like I used to?


**I just love this song by A Rocket To The Moon, and I thought that if Sam ever actually had prospects, Freddie would totally realize he felt this way. Just sayin'.**

* * *

**Like We Used To**

"And they lived happily ever," the narrator said, as I mouthed the words. I looked to the blonde, asleep on my chest. She loved this stupid movie. It was the only reason I watched it. I'd seen it so many times I could practically BE Prince Charming.

But no, this fiery blonde didn't want a Prince Charming like me. She wanted a Prince Zach. And I knew for a fact, that at this moment, Prince Zach was at a kegger, and Princess Puckett was in my arms.

I tried to reach for the remote on the opposite end of the couch, but I couldn't quite reach it. I grunted in defeat, before deciding that I would carefully remove Sam from my spectacular pecs, and then go to bed. My mother always complained when she found out I'd slept on the couch.

But as I went to move, she circled her arms around my waist and cuddled deeper into my chest. It was enough that I was persuaded to stay put for the rest of the night.

I didn't fall asleep right away. I was left with my thoughts as Sam snored gently.

They weren't really going out. Not yet, at least. But it was almost unavoidable. He thought she was hot, and she thought he was interested in her for more than that. I could tell her that, but then I would have to admit that she was beautiful, and that she deserved better than him. She deserved me.

But I couldn't tell her that of course. So I let her sleep, fully knowing that her first thought when she woke up would concern him, not me.

* * *

That was the last time Sam and I had really hung out. I had drawn a line when I realized that she was telling Zach, now her boyfriend, that she was with Carly when she was with me, because he was jealous. He had no reason to be jealous. I'd been throwing myself at her for years, and she barely even noticed. But I couldn't be with her when she was with him. It was too hard.

Our friendship was gone, which made it all the more shocking when she showed up at my apartment late one Saturday night, crying harder then I'd ever seen before. I looked across the hall, where I could assume Carly was, but I just couldn't turn Sam away from my door. Admittedly, I still loved her.

"Sam, what's wrong?" I said. I was almost sure it had something to do with Zach. She looked beautiful. All dressed up with nowhere to go but here. I felt ridiculous standing there in an undershirt and boxers. But she shoved past me into the apartment. Luckily, my mother was out of town for a conference.

"He's a big fucking jerk!" she said, going straight to my fridge.

I knew that much, but I wasn't about to rub it in, so instead I asked, "What happened?"

"Prune Chip? Really?" she said, pointing out the only ice cream my mother kept in the house. I handed her a spoon and motioned toward the couch. She shook her head and headed toward my bedroom.

"Wha…?" I said, following her. "My mom's not home. We have the whole apartment to ourselves."

"Well unless you want to do this in the bathroom, I'd rather we were away from the front door. I don't want Carly to know I'm here," she said, her glare almost burning a hole through my wall.

"Carly? Our Carly?" I asked, closing the door behind me.

"Yes, our Carly. Our very drunk, very horny Carly," she said, dropping onto the couch.

Her whole statement took me by surprised, and I gravitated toward my TV only by instinct before finally uttering a baffled, "Huh?"

"Zach and Carly," she stuttered, swallowing a spoonful of frozen comfort. "They cheated on me."

I didn't know quite what to say, so I asked, "Are you sure?"

She nodded quickly, "On the way to the party, Zach was trying to talk me into going all the way with him tonight, and I told him that I didn't want to. Two hours later, I try to find a spare room to breathe and I stumble on my boyfriend and very drunk ex-best friend going at it."

I could see the tears start to fall, so I turned on the DVD player.

She looked at me with confusion behind her tears, and I answered, "_The Notebook_.When you cry, you like to pretend it's over a movie, instead of…well..."

She thought about it for a second before giving me a glimmer of a smile, "Why couldn't I have ended up with a guy like you?"

I just shrugged, and she reached up to hug me. What could I do? I let her. She pulled me into the bed with her and I wrapped my arms around her as she cried into my shirt.

I could feel her breathing as we got to her favorite part of the movie, when Allie gets her memory back. Even I have to admit that this scene made me cry, just a little. I felt just emotional enough to say something I wouldn't have said at any other time.

"You deserve better than him, and you know it. And you might think you'd be alone, but you'd have me. I'm tired of being alone too. I want to be with you."

I didn't breathe while I waited for her to respond, and when she finally did, it was with a stifled snore. Defeated, I sighed before curling around her body and taking what I could get, if it were only enough.

* * *

In the middle of the night, I woke up with what I suspected was a stolen cover, but found the cover in place. Hazily, I realized that Sam's feet were next to mine, and freezing.

The rest of her body was a regular, normal, 98.6 degrees, but her feet were ice cold. At first, I tried to avoid them but she kept kicking, alerting me to the fact that she knew her feet were freezing.

Which meant that I had to sacrifice my comfort for hers, yet again.

I scooted down the bed a little ways and sandwiched her feet between mine. They were absolutely frozen. But after a few seconds, she stopped kicking, and I knew they had warmed up enough to stop bothering her. And that was enough.

* * *

That morning, I woke up to the chorus of "Little Red Corvette" coming through my bedroom wall. I realized Sam was gone, and surmised that she was the cause of all the noise, as well as the greasy smell of frying bacon.

I grabbed a pair of jeans and put them on before walking out to the kitchen. She was so caught up, dancing with a spatula in her hand to "When Doves Cry," that she didn't even realize I was there.

But I couldn't help it, and after only a few seconds, I chuckled and grabbed her, just as "Purple Rain" came on. She dropped the spatula in shock, and I took her hand and spun her around. She loved this song, and, though she wouldn't admit it, she always wanted to slow dance to it. But Zach hated Prince, found him emasculating, and had never given her the chance.

I, on the other hand, thought that virtually every Prince song was made explicitly for sexual tension. So she spun with me, and dipped when it seemed fitting, and slowly but surely, my hand crept down her back. "Purple Rain" is a nine minute song after all.

She was smiling, and I wanted to ask what had changed since last night, but I was too hypnotized to say a word. So I waited until the song was over and something lingered.

She held my eyes, waiting for me to say something, but just as I was about to, whatever we had broke, and she scurried to make more toast, or something just as menial.

I started to reach for plates and asked, "What's all this for?"

"Other than my endless hunger?" she laughed nervously. "I just thought, you know, after last night…I just wanted to thank you. For being there for me."

When no one else was, I finished in my head. I think she surmised as much, and nodded, before getting forks and setting the table.

It was only bacon and eggs, but there was something else and going on. Even my foolish heart couldn't be imagining the uneasy feeling here. Like that damp smell right before a tornado, I knew that something huge was about to go down.

I opened my mouth to ask what, but I was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Of all the people I could have expected, the one I least wanted to see was standing there, glaring the hell out of me from a few inches above.

"Is Sam here?" he asked, making it known that he didn't want to be speaking to me right now.

I was tempted to lie to him, but at the same time, I knew it would piss him off to know that she'd spent the night with me, "I don't think she wants to see you."

"Well that's not for you to decide, is it?" he said icily, and I knew he was right.

"Sam," I called inside. I heard her set down the plates she must have tried to wash, and she came to the door.

"Zach," she said, and I could hear the defeat in her voice. It was one thing to say she was too good for him, but it was another to actually face him.

"Listen Samantha, I know what you think you saw last night, but it's all a misunderstanding. Carly, she seduced me! She knew I was drunk, and, I don't know, I guess she was jealous," he said, ruffling his hair, which I knew was a tell, but Sam took it as sincerity. I knew that whatever had happened last night between Zach and Carly, it wasn't her idea.

"But Zach, I know what I saw," she started, but he interrupted her. I wanted to punch him in the jaw.

"Sammy, somebody must have spiked the punch. You were probably too drunk to know what you saw," he said, quite convincingly. I would have believed him, had I not known that Sam completely blacked out the last time she drank, that she hadn't taken a drink since, and that she showed up to my house perfectly sober. He was making it her fault that he'd cheated. And she was falling for it.

"Sam, can I speak to you?" I asked, she nodded, and Zach moved to come in, but I said, "No, you can wait out here," and slammed the door in his face.

I pulled her to my bedroom for the same reason she'd had last night. I didn't want him to hear a word of this.

"Sam, you can't forgive him this easily," I said, after closing the door.

She looked nervous and unsure, "Maybe he's right. Maybe I saw something else."

"Sam, you were so sure last night. You know what you saw. He's lying to you. Can't you see that?" I said, gripping both of her arms and trying to catch her eyes, but she nudged me off.

"But why would he come here, if he was just going to lie to me?" she asked angrily.

"Probably because he tried to get with Carly first, and she turned him down. She probably feels horrible about what happened last night, and did whatever she did because she was drunk. He probably said he'd dump you to make room for her, but she was loyal and told him to screw himself. You're his back-up plan Sam."

"You're making that up!" she screamed. At the time, I was. But Carly confirmed everything when I spoke to her a few hours later.

"Sam, you're too good for him. I've tried to get you to understand that since the moment you saw him in the hallway. I've tried to make you see that there's better out there for you."

And as she said this last statement, she seemed broken, "I doubt that Freddie…I think I'll give him a second chance. Maybe second best is the best I'll ever get."

She rushed past me quietly as I tried to respond. Right before she reached the door, I let loose.

"He doesn't love you! He never will! And I have, for so long…He will never take the time to get to know you like I have. He doesn't know anything about you past the fact that you're hot, but you're not hot. You are beautiful. You are absolutely gorgeous, and you deserve so much better than me, but at the least, he doesn't deserve you, at all. And I didn't let you in last night because you needed me. I let you in because I needed you. You're all I have…and you're all I want. But I can't share you. I can't let you cry over him on my shoulder. And I know there's something here. I felt it when I kissed you, and I felt it this morning, just like I feel it whenever I'm around you. So please…don't take him back. Not if there's any chance…"

She'd paused long enough to hear this much, but finally turned around sadly, every part of her body telling me goodbye, and I knew who she had chosen. I turned around, afraid I would cry if I had to watch the door close.

I counted the seconds after she left, trying to stifle the pain. I made it to 340, before I heard a knock on the door. I came close to ignoring it, but realized there was no good reason not to.

Of all the people I could have expected, the one I most wanted to see was standing there, grinning up at me from a few inches below. And I couldn't help but grin back.

"You look surprised?" she asked, and it took everything I had not to pick her up and spin circles in the hallway.

"I thought you had a boyfriend?" I asked, trying to understand why she'd come back.

"I did," she said, shamefully. "But he used me. And he cheated on me. And he didn't know my favorite movie…"

"_The Princess Bride_," I answered instinctively. "Your favorite part is when the Dread Pirate Roberts outsmarts Vizzini. And you're second favorite is when Buttercup realizes that Roberts is Wesley, and goes tumbling down the hill after him."

She just stared at me, so I added, "Oh, and you know every "INCONCIEVABLE!" by heart."

She went up on her toes and kissed me gently, then told me, "So that's why I came back. Because I thought about what I was like with him, and how different I was with you. I'm sick of being Samantha and Sammy. I just want to go back to Sam."

"Good, because I've missed her," I admitted. I pulled her toward me and hugged her. I could tell she was looking past me into the apartment.

"Do you think we could go inside now?" she asked, and I realized there were still remnants from breakfast on the table.

I opened the door and motioned her inside. She smiled, and I think she finally saw in me what I'd seen in her all along. And when she slid past me inside, I whispered, "As you wish."

I closed the door and she kissed me again, and I realized…it was my wish too.

* * *

**Not only is this my first oneshot in a while, but it was my first story written on my new laptop. Now that I have sole use of a computer, I'm ready to roll. But for right now, this is all I have for you. Which isn't all that bad actually. I hope you liked it.**


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